


Perestroika and Glasnost

by XtinaJones91



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Action, Angst, Drama, F/M, Family, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:56:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6903001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtinaJones91/pseuds/XtinaJones91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at what might happen to the Jennings at the end of the series:</p><p>It's 1987 and Gorbachev has announced his new policies of Perestroika and Glasnost: Restructuring and Openness. As their homeland rapidly changes, Philip and Elizabeth must finally confront the moment they've been near the brink of so many times - they have to get out of the United States.</p><p>The consequences of their actions take a toll on their family and restructure the Jennings in ways that will change them forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Separation and Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second foray into the world of The Americans. I believe that the strength of the show is its exploration of family dynamics and relationships, something I try to highlight in this story. 
> 
> What might happen to the Jennings clan when they're pushed to their limits and thrown into a whole new life?

“You have to go. Now!”

Elizabeth levels him with a glare as she slides a clip into her gun, the click of the weapon a definitive punctuation to her wordless response. It’s the argument they always have – who stays and who goes when the shit hits the fan. And the scenario has always been a ‘when’ and never an ‘if’ because they know they live on borrowed time.

The when has finally come and it advances upon them rapidly in the form of an FBI counter intelligence task force.

Philip puts a clip into his own gun and looks down at Elizabeth.

Crouched on the floor she pulls two bulletproof vests form their gear bag. Her movements are hurried but efficient; she operates on trained autopilot, prepared for this moment.

Philip allows himself a few seconds to watch his wife, his partner. The only person he pictured by his side when this day arrived.

But he knows he can’t let that be the case in the reality. He cannot be selfish in what may be his final hours.

“Elizabeth.”

She pushes herself up from the floor, jams her gun behind her back in the waistband of her black pants.

She grabs one of the vests and passes it to him.

“Put this on.”

Philip takes it and shrugs it on over his dark-colored t-shirt. He pokes his head and arms through the vest and adjusts it slightly.

Elizabeth does the same, but the neck of her turtleneck bunches awkwardly.

Philip steps in front of her and tugs the material free, folding it back down properly.

Elizabeth says nothing and concentrates her eyes on his chest.

“Elizabeth,” he tries again, voice low. “You need to go.”

His hands drop to her sides and grasp her arms at the elbows.

Elizabeth finally looks up at him, eyes ablaze.

“It’s not your decision to make, Philip.”

Philip rolls his eyes in frustration. They don’t have time for this. The FBI are headed directly for this corner of the warehouse they’ve holed up in.

“You know that’s not what I’m doing.”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

Philip steps away from her, his frustration and desperation mounting.

“Damnit, Elizabeth! We talked about this. We planned for this. You have to get to Henry and Paige before the FBI does. They’ll make it to the safe house but they need you for the rest of it, to get out of this country alive. You know what happens if we both stay.”

“I also know what happens if you stay and I go. They’ll kill you, Philip, and they won’t be nice about it.”

“They won’t kill me. They need me alive, I’m worth more to them that way.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I’d rather take that risk alone than with you by my side!”

“And I’d rather stay with you than leave you to die!”

Elizabeth stands a foot in front of him, breathing heavily, jaw set in determination, a hint of surprise at her confession evident in her eyes.

Philip blinks at her, takes her in, his warrior of a wife. The strongest person he knows. One of three people he truly loves.

He surges forward, takes Elizabeth’s face in his hands and pulls her to him.

Their mouths collide in a frantic clash of teeth and tongues, both of them desperate for dominance, desperate to convey all the things they will never be brave enough to say to each other.

Their vests keep them awkwardly apart from each other and Philip can’t pull Elizabeth closer like he wants to. She pulls back a centimeter to catch her breath and then she reclaims his lips, more gentle this time.

He keeps his eyes open through it all, wants to see everything, remember every detail. How Elizabeth’s eyelashes flutter, the few freckles on her nose, the smoothness of her skin beneath his palms, warm and alive.

Reluctantly he ends the kiss, stares directly into her eyes.

“Go. Please.”

He hates how his voice breaks on the words.

She nods, finally accepting what’s best for their family. She grabs a second gun from their bag and straps a knife to her leg underneath her pants. She leaves him the rest of their stash: another pistol, a rifle, rounds of ammo, the detonators for the C4 they rigged throughout the building.

She squares her shoulders, bag on the floor between them.

He tries to ignore the shine in her eyes, swallows several times past the lump in his throat.

“I’ll find you,” he gets out, a weak thing.

He swallows again, gathers his strength.

“I’ll find you,” he repeats. As much of a promise as he can make. He can’t say more, though he wants to, for fear of losing his conviction, running off with her, or worse, letting her stay.

“I know,” Elizabeth says.

And the soft, sad smile on her face tells him she means that beyond his promise, means it in regards to all those other words he can’t get out.

She gives him a final nod and he returns it, determination now settling in, the importance of the mission starting to take over.

She hesitates then spins on her heel and strides out the back door of the room. 

She doesn’t look back and he’s grateful. He hears her boots on the metal staircase for a few seconds and then…silence.

It’s just him and the blood pounding in his veins. Just him and the unknown number of FBI goons that want him dead.

He swallows rapidly and sucks in a deep breath, surveys the room and picks up the gear bag. He takes out one of the detonators and leaves the room from the main door.

If today is the day he goes down for good, he’s taking as many of them with him as he can.

Philip Jennings might die today, but Mikhail will live on. Elizabeth will make sure of it.

With one last thought of his wife and family, he strides across the hanging metal catwalk, ready to meet whatever waits for him on the other side.


	2. New Reality

Elizabeth rolls over and turns off her alarm clock, a modern machine that looks absurdly out of place among the outdated décor of the safe house. She doesn’t know why she bothers to set it when she consistently wakes hours before it. Old habits, she supposes.

She lies in bed and stares up at the cracked ceiling, seeing but not seeing. In the bathroom the leaky sink drums its syncopated rhythm. Plink… …plink-plink…plink. An endless beat that used to drive her crazy at night. Now it is monotonous background noise. Another thing she has learned to live with.

She turns her head to look at the clock.

6:03

Henry and Paige won’t be up for another two hours at least. It’s the weekend, she remembers, so she’ll let them sleep in.

She turns her head back to the ceiling, lies in the near silence as her mind wanders to all of the thoughts she won’t allow herself to have beyond the confines of this room.

And she will steadfastly ignore Philip’s side of the bed, the side that has been empty for the last eight months and will remain that way for the rest of her life.

She forces herself from the bed a half an hour later, no closer to wanting to face the day, but having no choice.

She washes robotically in the crappy shower, the water fluctuating from hot to cold at random intervals, but she’s accustomed to its erratic behavior.

She brushes her hair and applies minimal make-up, enough to cover the dark circles under her eyes. She spots a new wrinkle at the corner of her mouth and frowns, which doesn’t help.

She emerges from the bathroom in her towel and shuts her bedroom door before she dresses. She sleeps with it open now, always on alert, always listening.

She dresses quickly, pulls on slacks and a sweater and leaves the room.

She glides quietly to the room next to hers and peeks in through the cracked door. In the early morning light that makes its way through the shades she sees the outline of Henry’s body underneath his blanket.

He’s grown so much over the eight months they’ve been here that the Center has to keep sending new clothes. If Philip were here he’d joke about it with Henry, would probably compare him to a giraffe or something equally ridiculous.

She banishes the thought from her head and continues down the hall to Paige’s room. Her door is also slightly ajar. She’s facing the wall so all that Elizabeth sees is the tangle of Paige’s red curls that spill over her pillow.

Satisfied with her inspection, she creeps back down the hall, and heads to the kitchen. Time passes by in snatches as she makes coffee in an ancient machine that sputters and hisses at her angrily, eats a plate of toast that she doesn’t taste, gets the paper from the front porch and pulls out the comics for Henry before settling in on the ratty brown couch with the rest.

She scans most of the articles, reads a few that catch her eye and the entire World section. When she gets to the Classifieds she grabs a pen and notepad from the counter and spreads the page out on the hideously yellow, spotted Formica.

She runs her finger across each page, left to right, row by row, circling letters as she comes to the coded messages hidden amongst classifieds for used cars, people in need of yard work, and part-time job offers.

She reaches the end of the section and reads over the message: ‘SUPPLIES TONIGHT. FRIDAY 8PM.’

The first half of the message is normal – she was expecting a delivery since they were beginning to run out of groceries. The second part of the message brings a scowl to her face.

A meet. At night. The kids won’t like it. She doesn’t either. She wonders if the Centre wants to move them, and where and why. She’ll have to wait nearly a week for the answer.

The clock on the microwave flashes ‘7:45.’ It’s three minutes slow no matter how many times she resets it.

She folds up the newspaper and tosses both it and the message in the trash. She pulls two pans from the cabinet, the one with the loose door, and turns on the stove.

She gets the remaining eggs and milk from the fridge and whisks them together.

She grabs the bacon next and places several pieces into one of the warming pans.

The eggs follow suit in the second pan. She scrambles them and piles them onto a plate before flipping the bacon.

Bacon still sizzling away, she heads upstairs to wake the kids.

Henry grumbles but brightens at the news of bacon. Paige offers no complaint and promises to be down in five minutes.

Back downstairs she plates the bacon and brings the food to their small table. The kitchen arrangement is eerily similar to the one in their old house, except everything is either twenty years old or falling apart. And it feels nothing like a home.

Henry enters the kitchen as she sets out glasses of juice, Paige only a few steps behind him.

The kids sit and scoop eggs onto their plates; Henry’s portion dwarfs Paige’s. In addition to clothes, the Centre also has to contend with supporting the appetite of a teenage boy.

“Comics, Henry?” she asks.

“Yes, please,” he mumbles through a mouthful of bacon and eggs.

Paige rolls her eyes but doesn’t offer a comment on her brother’s grossness.

Elizabeth hands over the comics and joins them at the table.

The three Jennings eat in relative silence, broken only by the occasional quiet chuckle from Henry or a question from Paige. She’s been teaching them Russian history this month, and Paige is full of questions. Henry is less eager, but manages to stay engaged with the subject matter.

It’s strange for her to be able to openly speak about her homeland with her children now, but she’s grateful for the opportunity, glad there are no more lies between them. Though the cost of their situation was high, and she often questions if she did the right thing.

But all she has to do is look across the table at her two children, alive and with her, and she knows she wouldn’t have done it differently.

This is what Philip wanted, what they both wanted, and she has to make his sacrifice matter, make all of their struggles worth something.

So she gets out of bed every morning, faces her children that remind her of their father, and tries to do her best by them.

It’s all she has now.


	3. Nothing Is As It Seems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excited that The Americans has been renewed for its final 2 seasons! I doubt anything like this will happen on the show, but it's fun to play with the characters. Thanks for reading.

The knock on the door comes just after seven.

She’s at the slow-draining sink cleaning their dishes from dinner, elbows deep in soap suds.

“I’ll get it!” Paige shouts to her over the running water, jumping up from the couch where she was reading one of the old books lying around the safe house.

She gives her daughter a grateful smile and returns to the dishes. Paige can handle receiving their supply delivery from the Centre, but she lowers the water anyway to hear better.

At the front door, Paige peers through the slightly frosted glass onto the front porch. The man outside stands with his back to her, a dark blue ballcap on his head and a black duffle bag dangling from one hand.

Paige doesn’t recognize this Centre employee, but she’s not concerned - they send them different people all the time. She unlocks the door quickly and opens it.

“Hello,” she greets.

The man’s back straightens but he doesn’t turn around.

Paige waits, and then clears her throat.

“Hello?” she tries again.

In the kitchen Elizabeth turns off the water, beginning to worry.

At the front door Paige grows concerned, about to call for her mother.

But then the man finally turns to face her, and Paige wants to call out for her mother for an entirely different reason, but she can’t. The words are trapped in her throat that’s gone dry. She swallows rapidly, tries to process what stands in front of her, tries to weigh facts and evidence to get to the truth.

Beneath the ball cap and the beard, which may be real or fake, she can’t quite tell, are the eyes and face of someone she would recognize anywhere.

Finally, she gets a word out around the lump in her throat, a quiet, trembling, whisper:

“Dad?”

The ghost - the man - smiles at her, and despite everything that says it can’t be true, she knows it is.

Her father is alive.

The next moments for Paige are a blur.

Her father steps across the threshold into the house. He closes the door behind him, stands in front of her, waiting.

Paige hesitates for a second and then throws herself at her father. His arms open to catch her and she barely registers the sound of the duffle bag hitting the floor.

She squeezes him tightly and buries her face in his shoulder. He squeezes back, arms wrapped tightly around her. It’s something she thought she’d never experience again, which is why she’s pretty sure she’s crying. From the shaking of her father’s shoulders, he is too.

From behind her, Paige distantly registers her mother’s voice calling from the kitchen.

“Paige?”

Before she can respond, her mother’s voice calls out again, distinctly closer.

“Is everything al- ”

Her mother’s voice chokes on the last word and abruptly cuts off. 

Paige pulls out of her father’s embrace and turns around in time to catch the look on her mother’s face. It is one she will never forget.

Her father stills behind her, and without seeing him, she knows his expression mirrors that of her mother’s.

Paige steps aside, gives her parents a clear path to each other.

She watches as her father removes his ballcap, drops it to the floor by his bag, runs a nervous hand through his hair. Her mother remains motionless, one hand at her side, one resting on her chest as if it’s holding back all of the emotions inside of her.

Her father walks forward, a series of slow, measured steps toward her mother. He walks right up to her and still she doesn’t move.

There’s a beat of silence where Paige holds her breath, feels like she’s intruding on a private moment.

Then her father raises a hand to her mother’s face and speaks.

“Elizabeth.”

Instead of embracing her father, Paige stands by in surprise and confusion as her mother takes a step back. She recognizes the look in her mother’s eyes, the one she gets when she’s ready for a fight, when she’s protecting herself. 

“Elizabeth?” her father asks. 

“No,” her mother says, taking another step backward.

“Elizabeth, I can explain.”

“Get out.”

“Mom!” Paige gasps.

Her parents both turn to look at her as if they’ve just remembered she’s there.

“Stay out of this, Paige,” her mother warns.

“You can’t send him away!”

“Paige!”

“No! I won’t let you!”

“Paige,” her father says, voice soft. “It’s not your choice.”

“You’re just going to leave us again?! But because we know you’re not actually _dead_ this time that’s supposed to make it better?”

“I did what I did to protect all of you, Paige.”

“You _lied_ to us!" 

“I had to keep you safe. I had no other choice. If there was another way, I would have done it differently. You have to believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

It hurts Paige to say the words, but it clearly hurts her father more to hear them.

Her mother glances at the staircase, checking to make sure Henry hasn’t heard anything.

“You need to go,” her mother says, arms crossed across her chest, closed off.

Her father swallows a few times, fails to mask his devastation, his guilt, his sorrow.

He nods once.

“Okay,” he says, quiet, resigned.

Her father turns to her and his face softens.

“I’m proud of you, Paige. And I love you so much. Please believe that...and tell Henry. Tell him I’m sorry.”

Paige nods, not trusting herself to speak.

Her father smiles at her, a smile tinged with nostalgia and regret. Then he turns back to her mother, whose eyes are suspiciously shining.

“Она всегда будет вам,” her father says. And then he walks away from her mother, passes by Paige, and heads for the door.

He pauses at the duffle bag, bends down to pick up his hat and puts it back on. He leaves the bag on the floor, opens the door, and steps out into the night.

The door clicks shut behind him and Paige is left with her mother and the heavy silence that fills the hall. Her mother stares unmoving at the space her father occupied.

Briefly, Paige ponders her father’s words. She knows enough basic Russian now to understand what he said: ‘It will always be you.’ She wonders why, of all things, he chose to say that as his apparent goodbye.

But there are other things to worry about right now.

Paige turns her attention to the bag her father left behind and goes over to it. She crouches to the ground and unzips the bag, expecting her mother to reprimand her, tell her to stop. No warning comes.

She peers inside and her eyes widen. 

“Mom!” she gasps.

She sticks a hand in the bag and pulls out one of the items sitting on top of a pile of cash, more money than she’s ever seen, more money than she can easily count.

The item in her hands is an American passport. In the bag are three more and an assortment of passports from at least two other countries.

Paige opens the passport she’s holding and is startled to find her own face staring back at her. Except her passport doppelganger has lighter hair and goes by ‘Jessica Williams.’ She flips through the pages of the passport and sees stamps for trips between the U.S., Canada, and a few countries in Europe that she’s never actually gone on.

Heart racing, Paige drops the passport in the bag and picks up another one. This one is for Henry. New name: Charles Williams. Hair: dirty blonde. She checks the final two U.S. passports: one for her father, and one for her mother.

Paige stands and hurries to her mother who still hasn’t moved. She shoves the set of fake American documents into her mother’s hands.

Her mother startles and looks down.

“Paige. What -”

“He came to help us. To get us out of here.”

Her mother’s eyes meet hers and Paige identifies a spark in them.

“They’re for you, me, Henry, and dad. There are others in the bag, for different countries. And money, mom. A _lot_ of money.”

“The meet,” her mother whispers.

“What?” Paige asks, confused.

But her mother doesn’t answer. She springs into action, strides past Paige for the front door. As she passes the bag, she tosses the passports into it.

When her mother reaches the door she pauses and turns back. Her mother gives her a smile that catches Paige off guard.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Paige can only nod as she watches her second parent walk out the door. A small part of her worries neither of them will return.

  
A larger part worries that only one will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first time writing from Paige's perspective, not sure if I've got her quite right yet.  
> Share your thoughts if you'd like!


	4. Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a bit shorter than the others, but moves things along.

Elizabeth hurries down the front steps and down the driveway, mind racing with a myriad of thoughts, but one thing is clear above all else: she must find Philip.

She reaches the end of the driveway, looks right, then left. Her instincts tell her to go left, down the sloping hill that is their street. So she does.

Her breaths puff out in front of her as she walks quickly along the side of the road, but she doesn’t feel the cold. Philip has a head start on her. She hopes she’s not too late, hopes she hasn’t driven things beyond the point of no return.

The houses are sparse and spread out amongst forested land here, the distances between them cast in shadows and lit by only the occasional street lamp. She continues to walk, dead leaves crunching beneath her feet. Her eyes scan side to side and ahead, searching and anxious.

Finally, fifty yards ahead of her, she spots him. She increases her pace, not bothering to be quiet, not caring if he hears her approach. He probably sensed her twenty minutes ago.

“Philip!” she calls.

There’s a slight hitch in his step, but he keeps heading away from her, his stride even and purposeful.

She moves faster, a speed that’s just shy of a jog.

“Philip!” she calls again.

This time he slows and she takes advantage of this to make up the remaining ground between them. She draws closer, within feet of him.

“Philip, please.”

Abruptly, he stops.

She jerks to a halt.

She waits.

He stands, back to her, his own breaths expelling puffs into the chilly night air.

He gives her nothing, but he stopped, and that encourages her to go on.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

His silence persists, shoulders and back a defensive wall.

“I...you know how I am, Philip. I’m not good at this. I never have been. When you...when we thought you were - it’s been hard, without you. On the kids, on me. And to find out it wasn’t true...that everything we went through was just part of another lie...it made me angry. And I reacted how I always do. But the kids need you. _I_ need you. And - would you just _look at me_ , Philip. Please.”

Elizabeth Jennings never begs. But she hasn’t really been Elizabeth Jennings for awhile now.

Philip miraculously complies, turning slowly to face her. 

Her breath hitches in her chest as she is once again graced with the sight of her husband. This time she allows herself to really see him, take him in. He’s thinner than she remembers. Eyes hollower than the last time she saw them, now bright with tears. His hair is longer, too. And the beard - definitely real - gives his whole face a different look.

But underneath all that, underneath the wear and tear of the months they’ve spent apart, he is still _Philip_. Her husband. Her partner.

He tilts his head at her, in that way he has when he’s considering her.

Suddenly he comes toward her, shrugging his jacket off in the process.

She looks at him in confusion as he drapes the jacket over her shoulders, pulling it tightly around her. Immediately the smells she has always associated with him overwhelm her, smells that had unwillingly begun fading from her memory.

“It’s cold. And you’re shivering,” he offers in explanation.

She hadn’t noticed. Didn’t have room to focus on anything but him and what she could say to banish that haunted look from his eyes.

He’s close to her now, so close she can feel the body heat that radiates off of him.

“Thanks,” she whispers.

He gives her a half-smile in return, and that’s a start. Enough to get her talking again.

“Come back to the safe house,” she says, tilting her head toward the hill behind her.

Philip sighs, whole body deflating.

“Is that really a good idea?”

“Do you...not want to?” she asks, hesitant, nervous.

“Elizabeth...you know I want to.”  
  
“Then why won’t you?”

“It’s not that simple!” he says, voice rising as he throws his hands up in frustration. 

“When have our lives ever been simple?”

Philip rolls his eyes, fights back a smile.

“Elizabeth…”

“I’m serious, Philip. Things have never been simple for us, but it’s never stopped us before.”

“And how well has that turned out?”

“We’re still standing here, after everything.”

Philip crosses his arms over his chest and sighs. She pulls his jacket further around her body.

“Thirty minutes ago you told me to leave. You made it pretty clear you didn’t want me there.”

“I shouldn’t have done that. I overreacted. I’m sorry. And I know it won’t be...easy, fixing things between us” she starts, desperate to convince him, feeling like this is the last chance she will have to do so. “But I would try,” she goes on, echoing those words she whispered vulnerably to him a lifetime ago in their bedroom, before things fell apart for them as they so often did.

And here she was once again, laying everything bare before him.

“Will you try?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop a line if you'd like, and thanks for reading!


	5. Father and Son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not in the States right now and have to miss the finale tonight, but here's a new chapter to enjoy.

Paige sits on the ratty couch staring down at the pages of her book. The words fade and swim in front of her eyes. It’s impossible for her to focus on them right now, but she has to do something while she waits to find out the fate of her family. 

She glances at the microwave clock. Her mother’s only been gone for a few minutes. Paige chews a nail nervously.

Upstairs she hears the creak of floorboards followed by Henry’s footsteps on the stairs.

“Mom?” he calls out. Gets no response.

“Paige?” he tries, and she can hear his anxiety in the slight rise of his voice.

“In here, Henry,” she calls back quickly to calm him down.

He appears next to her. She looks up, still finding it strange that her brother is so much taller than her.

“Where’s mom?” he asks.

She closes her book, scoots over and motions for him to join her.

“Sit down.”

Henry raises an eyebrow at her.

“Paige…”

“Sit and I’ll explain everything.”

Henry complies and drops down onto the couch.

“Explain? What’s going on, Paige? Where’s mom?”

Paige experiences a moment of clarity where she feels a connection to her parents, begins to understand what it must have been like for them every time they had to explain why one or both of them wasn’t home, was off risking their lives for what they believed was the greater good. 

But they had to lie. Paige can’t do that right now. She won’t baby her brother or sugarcoat things for him. They’re all way past that.

So she starts at the beginning, when the knock came at the door and the person standing on the other side was their father, someone they had thought to be dead for eight months.

At first, Henry refuses to believe her. But she shows him the bag, full of money and forged documents, enough for all four of them to flee, start a new life somewhere else.

Then Henry becomes quiet as he just stares down at the passports for several minutes.

When he looks back up at her, he’s not her teenage brother who’s growing up too fast. He’s her little brother and he’s scared.

“Do you think they’re gonna come back?” he asks.

Paige hates that she can’t give him a reassuring answer. So she tells him the truth.

“I don’t know.”

* * *

 

They play chess absentmindedly for almost an hour, neither of them really paying attention to the game or caring about its outcome.

Henry is contemplating whether to move his rook or bishop when the front door opens.

They both startle and spin to look at the hall entry.

Their mother appears from behind the wall first.

Paige’s heart jumps into her throat, cautious hope blooming in her chest when she sees that her mother has her father’s coat wrapped around her shoulders.

Her mother gives them a tentative smile and then steps to the side.

And then her father appears in the doorway, an even more tentative smile on his face.

Henry visibly stiffens. Paige knows what he’s feeling, having just gone through that roller coaster of emotions an hour ago. And she still has questions to ask, still has things she wants to know from her father, but she’s going to hold all of that back for now. 

Her father stands in the doorway, clearly unsure if he is welcome.

Paige decides to rectify that.

“Dad!” she exclaims, springing up from the couch and launching into his arms once again.

“You came back,” she says.

Her father pulls back a fraction and looks down at her, tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear.

“Of course I did.”

She gives him a squeeze and moves to the side to join her mother.

Henry stands in the middle of the room, fists clenched at his sides.

Paige watches, breath held, hoping her brother will accept their father back into their lives.

“Hey, buddy,” her father says. “You’re taller.”

“Yeah,” Henry shrugs, not giving their father an inch.

Next to her Paige senses her mother’s anxiety. The balance of their family hinges upon these next few moments.

“Caps really need to turn it around, huh? Ridley’s been good, but Courtnall needs to do more when he has the puck.”

Henry gestures toward their shitty TV.

“I can’t really watch the games here. I have to check them in the paper.”

“Me, too,” her father replies. “I’ve been in the hospital for awhile. No TV in there. No pizza either.”

Paige’s eyes widen at this new piece of information, and so do Henry’s.

“The hospital?”

“Well, the Centre’s idea of a hospital. So not a very nice one.”

“But you’re...okay now?” Henry asks, his concern momentarily overriding whatever negative feelings he may harbor toward their father.

“Getting there,” her father answers, eyes clouding over briefly.

“That’s why you were gone for so long?”

“Partly. I...I’d like the chance to explain everything to you, Henry. You and your sister. Why I had to do what I did, and what it means for all of us. If you’ll let me. It’s completely up to you. I know you’re hurt, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. I’ll even leave if that’s what you-”

“No!” Henry nearly shouts, taking a step forward. “No.”

“Don’t leave again, dad. Please.”

Henry’s eyes pool with tears and Paige swipes hastily at the ones in her own eyes.

“I won’t, Henry. I won’t,” her father promises, voice breaking.

Henry rushes forward and her dad moves to meet him, welcoming Henry into his arms.

Paige looks to her mother whose gaze is fixed on the reunion happening in front of them. Her mother doesn’t cry often, at least not in her presence. This moment is a more than appropriate exception.

Her mother meets her gaze and smiles through her tears, gesturing for her to come closer. Paige does and her mother slides an arm around her shoulders, pulls her close.

Paige leans into her mother and releases a sigh.

For the first time in a long time, Paige thinks everything might be okay.


End file.
